The University of Michigan (UM), inclusive of its Comprehensive Cancer Center (UMCCC) and Medical School Departments, requests its inaugural UI0 award as an NCI National Clinical Trials Network Lead Academic Participating Site (NCTN LAPS-U10). We view this opportunity as an important component of a large cancer research effort at our institution. We remain committed to the concept that multi-institutional collaboration is essential to the advancement of cancer treatment. Our goal as a LAP Site is to make significant scientific, administrative and patient data contributions to the NCTN effort to study and improve cancer therapy. The NCTN process involves the collection of patient data, adoption of uniform toxicity and response criteria, and conduction of purposeful clinical trials. Cooperative group research is the only setting in which sophisticated concepts of combined modality and interdisciplinary therapy as well as adjuvant therapies can be properly evaluated. The cooperative groups have also provided improved understanding of the important relationships between prognostic factors, therapy and patient outcomes that could not have been obtained otherwise.